Update: Intel Dual-Core Systems Begin Shipping Monday

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Intel Corp. officials said Friday that systems containing its first dual-core processors will begin shipping Monday.

Systems from Dell, Alienware, and other OEMs will begin rolling out, ending a wave of speculation as to when the systems will actually ship. Intel originally said that the dual-core shipments would begin this month, and Advanced Micro Devices is expected to announce its first dual-core Opterons on April 21.

Both AMD and Intel have milestones to celebrate. For Intel, the company is marking the 40th anniversary of “Moore’s Law,” the theorem governing transistor density that has become the ruler for measuring improvements in semiconductor manufacturing. At AMD, the company is nearing the second anniversary of the Opteron, the first 64-bit X86 processor and the catalyst for the company’s financial viability.

“For the record… we are now confirming that the first-ever dual core PCs (our processors and chipsets) will be shipping from OEMs starting Monday morning, 4/18,” Intel spokeswoman Shannon Love wrote in an email to ExtremeTech. “For some time, this date had been set to coincide with the eve of the official 40th anniversary of Moore’s Law date since OEMs typically intro [products] on weekends/Mondays.”

The new chips also include hyperthreading, offering the equivalent of processing four threads at once, Love added.

Analysts predict that very few dual-core chips will be sold this year, in part because of their premium pricing. Dean McCarron, principal at Mercury Research, said he expects 2006 to be the year of dual-core processors, in part because Intel already has a “premium” 64-bit Pentium 4 available. According to Intel’s Love, Intel will ship “millions” of dual-core parts this year, but the company anticipates that dual-core shipmets will make up 70 percent of its server processor shipments and 85 percent of its desktop and mobile shipments at the end of 2006.

Dell will feature the dual-core chips in its Dell Precision 380 workstation as well as its next-generation Dell Dimension XPS desktop, which will be priced beginning at $2,999. The XPS includes the Intel 955X Express chipset, as well as six PCI Express expansion slots, including four PCI Express 4X slots. Over time, Dell expects to help bring the dual-core technology down into less expensive systems, Dell spokesman Liem Nguyen said this week.

“Though the XPS isn’t overclocked like its boutique brethren, it’s wickedly fast and pretty distinctive in its own right,” PC Magazine wrote in a recent review.

Mercury’s McCarron said DIY enthusiasts should start to receive shipments of packaged dual-core processors and motherboards in the retail market “very, very soon”.

AMD, however, remained vague on the subject of its dual-core launch.

“AMD has been long been planning a launch on April 21,2005, at our annual Opteron Anniversary Event, while our competitor has made a series of apparent hurried, reactionary moves to rush their product to market before ours, hoping to claim a hollow victory,” according to a statement released Friday and attributed to Marty Seyer, corporate vice president and general manager of the Microprocessor Business Unit at AMD. “Unlike our competition, AMD64 was built from the ground-up for multi-core and fits inside the same thermal envelope as our single-core processors, resulting in a product that customers actually want and can use immediately.

“It is important to note that AMD only announces products when we are able to immediately begin shipping for revenue and that we have been shipping dual-core AMD Opteron processor production samples to customers and partners since January,” the statement added. “When all is said and done, the simple truth is that AMD leads this market with superior innovation, superior architecture and an unwavering vision with dual core. For 2005, if customers want a dual-core product with performance and user-friendliness, they need to buy AMD64.”

“April 21 would be a good day to talk about them,” McCarron said of AMD’s dual-core offerings.

Editor’s Note: this story was updated at 1:14 PM PDT on April 15, 2005 with comments from Mercury’s McCarron and a statement from AMD.

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